


just like this

by keouil



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Not What It Looks Like
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:54:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26681728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keouil/pseuds/keouil
Summary: my all is in you.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Sasuke
Comments: 8
Kudos: 24





	just like this

just like this, sasuke and sakura begin.

* * *

she loved him best when he was standing a foot away, barely out of reach but always within her space, because he felt more in control when he was aware of everything happening around him.

he didn’t love her when she stood too close he could smell her shampoo, a weird concoction of lavender and vanilla, because the scent overstimulation messed with his brain and he needed it to work perfectly fine at all times because he couldn’t afford even a single moment of incompetence.

* * *

she loved him best when he had half his back turned to her, the hard lines of his ever-growing tall silhouette softening for just a millisecond, just as he landed the final blow of his favourite catchphrase she now never had the chance of understanding.

he didn’t love her when she was being a monumental pain in the ass and weakened his unwavering resolve for a brief of a moment when she spilled that first tear. because for every kink in the road he was always five steps ahead, but when it came to her he found himself utterly defenseless.

* * *

she loved him best when he perched himself atop a blown-out cave and she hasn’t seen him in three years and her heart is aching because she finds herself staring at this strangely familiar coldness she tried fighting out of him and realising she has failed yet again.

he didn’t love her when the very body he ruthlessly trained into submission for three years betrays him yet again for the very same reason, and he finds a voice eerily like his uttering her name so he catches himself before he can say anything else.

* * *

she loved him best when she can feel the warmth of his breath fan out across her face and she can feel the tremors in his hand internally struggle to both keep her in place and shove her off to high hell. but for a moment, she sees a flash of something in his eyes, and it’s how she knows she can keep loving him.

he didn’t love her when this wretched body of his detects the faint smell of something like _fucking lavender and vanilla_ so his hand slips for a fraction of a second and he catches her catching on so he tightens his grip as he wills his mouth to bite out lies to send her running.

* * *

she loved him best when he is uncharacteristically the last one on the scene, the ever-punctual clan child still embedded in her mind, just as her breath leaves her when she finds him already staring. but for the first time ever, she musters up the courage to be the one who looks away.

he didn’t love her when she had that pained look in her face, for reasons he didn’t have the luxury to explore just yet. instead he finds himself angry and twelve and in a forest again when all he wanted to do was rip the living life out of whoever was responsible for making her face like _that_.

* * *

she loved him less when they were the only people in the hospital room and she couldn’t think straight because all at once he was suffocating and intimidating and _always staring_. she finds herself completely disadvantaged without the knowledge of knowing where she was in his life – and not for the first time, if she could let herself in again.

he liked her more when she offered to heal him. she still smelled like flowers and ice cream, his mother’s favourite things. a vision of a family with pink hair and red eyes flooded his mind unconsciously and he tries not to stare afterwards. but when she touches her hand to his eye and if he leans into it is no fault other than his body, only this time he doesn’t fight it.

* * *

she couldn’t love him when he was screaming himself to sleep every night and requesting her aid every other day. because she knew he was hurting and needed yet another tether to claw himself out off _(itachi, danzo, naruto)_ and she couldn’t allow herself to be that anymore. not just because tsunade told her not to, but because she knew he needed to do this one thing on his own as much as it tore her heart apart seeing him so familiar with disappointment.

he needed her when his eyes were bound and he couldn’t see a single damn thing and found himself more and more frantic when he couldn’t even smell her anymore because they took her from him and he is reeling himself in for yet another nameless medic and nearly strangles the poor woman because she wouldn’t answer _where is she._

* * *

they couldn’t love each other the way minato loved kushina when she brought home groceries and he found three extra care packages labelled for each member of his genin team and he was completely, doubtlessly enamored.

they couldn’t even love each other the way mikoto loved fugaku when he returned from long missions and had sharper edges than usual so she had to steel herself into mellowing them out every time because that was what was expected of her.

* * *

they love, like, fixate, or whatever it was - they did it as sasuke and sakura.

because nothing ever came as easy for them as it did with others when there are expectations to be met and gratitude to be paid off. it is never as naturally domestic as a simple _tadaima_ and _okaeri_.

for sasuke, home was never a place so much as an obsession. he has never felt the familiar warmth of having a place to call his, not for a long time at least. the war may have been over but the one in his head has spun endlessly since he was twelve and he can count on only one hand the times it lulled into a stop and he finds himself shaken with horror and longing at the realisation all those times involved her.

for sakura, saying thank you came to her as naturally as breathing. and maybe it’s this knee-jerk reaction to always being indebted to something or some _one_ and feeling like she always had to wear her highest heels for the slimmest chance to be seen, even accidentally – that she is entirely exhausted and wants to grow out of.

* * *

just like this, sasuke and sakura end. 

only sasuke is still screaming and sakura is still caring but they are none without the other and in that odd space between being nothing and everything at the same time – _they be._


End file.
